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Thomas Chung (artist)
Story featuring a picture of Chung's painting on display Kathy Griffin's triumph shows more emotion =Deleted in preparation for AfD= :Lede The motif of nude actor Chris Evans holding the severed head of Donald Trump was covered by Fox News, as well as many other right wing news media outlets. Reaction to the painting included hundreds of death threats to the artist, necessitating a temporary police escort. He has been featured on PBS, Art in America, Modern Painters Magazine and the New Yorker. :Career Chung travels to lecture about his artwork and raise awareness on topics of multiculturalism in the arts. His work was recently featured on PBS for the series “Indie Alaska”. INDIE ALASKA|last=Segal|first=Shiri|date=2019-05-29|website=Alaska Public Media|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-28}} He has had numerous group and solo exhibitions including “Everything is Sacred”, his 2018 solo exhibition at the Anchorage Museum. In 2012, Chung was awarded Yale University’s Schoelkopf Travel Grant to conduct informal anthropological fieldwork with shamanic practitioners in the Amazon Basin. In 2013, Chung was the first art student in Yale University's history to receive the University-wide Theron Rockwell Field Prize for "poetic, literary, or religious scholarship," for his graduate dissertation. In 2016, he was the recipient of a 2016 Rasmussen Individual Artist Award which he used to travel to remote places in Alaska to observe the intersection of the traditional and modern. Notably, Chung used the grant to travel to Wainwright, Alaska and Point Hope, Alaska to observe the annual bowhead whale hunt and festival. =Article= Thomas Chung (born 1988) is an American visual artist and professor based in Anchorage Alaska whose work deals mainly with topics of globalization and healing culture. Department of Art University of Alaska Anchorage|website=www.uaa.alaska.edu|access-date=2019-10-28}} He is most well-known for his controversial painting “Everything” which includes a depiction of the decapitated head of Donald Trump being held by actor Chris Evans. His work is in the permanent collection of the Anchorage Museum and appears in the book "North-Finding Place in Alaska". Early life and education Chung was born in New Jersey. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California as well as the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. Chung went on to receive his Master of Fine Art degree from the Yale School of Art in 2013. Career Chung participated in the 2012 group exhibition “Gifted and Talented” in Manhattan, New York curated by performance artist Clifford Owens. In 2016 he was a recipient of a Rasmuson Foundation 2016 Individual Artist Award. His work was recently featured on PBS for the series “Indie Alaska”. INDIE ALASKA|last=Segal|first=Shiri|date=2019-05-29|website=Alaska Public Media|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-28}} He has had numerous group and solo exhibitions including “Everything is Sacred”, his 2018 solo exhibition at the Anchorage Museum. ''Everything'' In response to the result of the 2016 US presidential election, Thomas Chung created the painting “Everything” to comment on the inseparability of racial inequity and American culture and history. The painting was displayed at the University of Alaska’s Kimura Gallery in April 2017 as part of a regularly scheduled faculty show. Images of the painting circulating on the internet caused local TV stations to cover the story which then went national. The motif of nude actor Chris Evans holding the severed head of Donald Trump was covered by the Fox News television program America's Newsroom and featured on Fox News Insider , as well as other news media outlets such as The Associated Press and The Blaze . This resulted in hundreds of death threats to the artist, and the need for a police escort for Professor Chung. Shortly after the controversy erupted, University of Alaska Anchorage President Jim Johnsen issued a campus wide statement in support of Professor Chung and free speech. "A vital and vibrant university, regardless of the campus, must be a place of ideas and debate," Johnsen wrote, "…a place where the most controversial ideas abound, and where assumptions and positions are openly tested." The painting “Everything” and the related aftermath has been cited in articles and news media about the limits of free speech. The subsequent controversial photo of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a fake severed head of Donald Trump has also been linked to Chung’s painting in conversations about free speech. References Category:1988 births Category:Living people Category:American painters Category:American academics Category:Painters from New Jersey Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni Category:Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Category:Yale School of Art alumni Category:Painters Category:Controversies Category:Censorship in the arts Category:Censorship controversies